There are five elements of Universal Story that are the foundation of every successful novel. So says writer and coach Lewis Jorstad.
Let’s skip the long intro and go directly to those five, which are:
- a character who wants something
- a tangible goal for them to pursue
- a real, pressing conflict they can’t ignore
- a transformative lesson they’ll learn by the end
- a world to contain the story
So far, so good. These are elements I base my writing on every day. They fit with wants, needs and mis-beliefs, essential conflicts and proactive character.
I inserted transformative in point four, because that is a large part of the character arc.
Together, these make up the ‘universal story’ that hooks us and keeps us in the story for more than five minutes.
Losing the plot
Lewis deliberately excludes plot. Plot is a sequence of events that occur when the five elements of Universal Story combine. As we’ve said in the past, anyone can write plot. There’s a limited number of plots, endlessly repeated over and over. But the five elements of Universal Story are what makes them matter. Ignore the plot.
In a world…
I’d argue that the world isn’t so important, since I can shift the same stories between media and genres with minimal changes. When those first four elements work, they work in any genre, in any world. The world is the icing on the cake. When they don’t, no amount of world-building will make a classic. But if the world doesn’t work, it can quickly flush a Universal Story down the drain. Let’s not dwell on the many dystopian, dark fey, and romantasy novels pulled down by lazy, illogical and unfeasible world-building
Why they matter
So when a story fails, you can always go back to the five elements of Universal Story to identify where it fails: character, goal, conflict, lesson, or world. Those are what matter, not car chases, plan crashes, shoot-outs or bedroom athletics.